Inviolable Fragments of Love
by rightxhere
Summary: The romantic lives of doctor Robert Romano and nurse Abby Lockhart as single entities had always been broken and unstable, but what about the love they've found themselves finding in each other?


**Title: **Inviolable Fragments of Love  
**Author:** Demelza  
**Disclaimer:** ER and its characters belong to NBC and their other owners. No infringements of these copyrights are intended, and are used here without permission.  
**Summary:** The romantic lives of doctor Robert Romano and nurse Abby Lockhart as single entities had always been broken and unstable, but what about the love they've found themselves finding in each other? Will it withstand all that life has to throw at them, or will heartache ensue?

**"Chapter One"**

Images and sounds alike flickered through his mind in an abhorrent rush, stabbing at the very nerves that had made him panic a thousand or more times before. The helicopter fell fast, rushing toward him. But, at the moment when impact should have occurred, his eyes opened and he found himself staring up at the ceiling.

Speckled tiles glared down at him, tormenting him with their vicious array. When, "No," came his raspy, whispered voice.

"Doctor Romano?"

He heard her, but his mind refused to allow the reality around him to seep in. Not when he could still feel the ice-cold wind blowing against his cheeks as the helicopter came spiraling towards him. A mad rush and the blades had shuddered, leaving his legs paralyzed as he screamed.

Her touch was delicate as she lifted his hand in hers to check his pulse; her skin was soft and warm. He hesitated, before allowing his gaze to shift and fall upon her gentle smile.

"You collapsed outside," she quietly explained. "How are you feeling now?"

Romano swallowed, unsure. "I'm fine," he lied. How could he tell her about the raging fear that was battling it out with every rational thought inside his head? She'd think he was mad. And, if not mad, he didn't doubt that she'd think he was a coward.

"Pulse is at ninety," she carefully spoke, clearing her throat ever slightly. "BP is..."

"Spare me," he interrupted, sitting up as he did so. He winced, pain going through what used to be his left arm. All a figment of his imagination: an apparition of what was stolen from him. He slumped back onto the bed and let out a long sigh. "Who's my attending?" he asked, staring up at her. When she didn't reply, he let out a frustrated sigh. "Why you?"

"I got the shortest straw," she replied with a small smile.

Romano groaned. "Why don't you go...do, whatever it is you should be doing, Abby."

Abby smiled, a little wider this time. "I'd like to, but like I said, I got the shortest straw. Which means you're stuck with me until Kovac clears you."

"Great, now I'll never leave this hell-hole."

She laughed, stopping, however, when she saw the look on his face. "Oh, you were serious?" she asked, sitting on the side of the bed. She was still holding his hand in hers.

_Can't I suffer in peace? _

"What time is it?" he asked after a moment.

"Just after three," Abby replied, finally placing his hand down by his side.

The warmth of her skin lingered for a few seconds, before fading. The absence of her touch left an empty feeling in his chest and he took in a low breath. "How long was I...?"

"Seven, maybe eight hours. I'm not entirely sure."

"You're that incompe..."

"No," Abby replied, her voice firm. "We only got the back-load cleared a half hour ago."

"And where was I? Wheeled into a hallway and left there?"

"Luka suggested we do that, but I made sure you got a room by yourself ASAP."

He nodded, looking away from her. "Could you leave?"

She stood up from the bed. "I'll check on you in another hour."

"Don't bother," he quietly replied, closing his eyes as he exhaled.

His stomach growled and Abby raised her eyebrows at him.

He sighed again, opened his eyes and stared at the far wall. "I told you to leave."

"I'll bring some food on my next round," Abby said then. She waited for a brief moment, for some small part of a response. But, getting none, she left.

Romano's eyes remained locked on the far wall. "Why, _me_?" he asked, an anger to his tone.

He wanted an answer.

He _deserved_one.

Through the months since the accident, his mind hadn't left him in peace. Thoughts raced round and round. No pausing, no waiting. Just an ever constant cycle of reminders. And when the times came when he was so close to accepting what 'was', something else always came along and he felt like he was back at the point of impact, living that night over again.

Couldn't he have a break? Wasn't he at least owed that after everything he'd been through?

All he wanted was the emotional pain to cease. He wanted to laugh and smile without immediate shock back to the reality that he was no longer the man he was before the accident.

He lay there in the bed for the next forty minutes, watching the outside window. He didn't care about the voices that he heard out in the hallway, some of which were cruel laughter at their colleague's current situation, and he also didn't care about the footsteps. Walking far, far away from him.

It's what he deserved, wasn't it?

He'd spent countless years, even still now, being a cruel bastard to all those around him. It had become part of his passion. It wasn't intentional; it had started out as an in-built defense mechanism to the bullies from his high-school years. Since then, it had become part of the package that made him who and what he was.

Now, he lay in physical pain - grazed elbow and mild headache - at the result of a panic attack he had suffered in the elevator.

Yeah, he remembered.

Truth was, he just wanted to pretend like there was no explanation. If he said he didn't recall, who were they to claim otherwise?

He'd watched Neela walk out of the elevator, visions of 'that night' flashing before his eyes, and he'd done the only thing he thought he could. He quickly pressed the ground button and stepped back against the wall of the elevator as he closed his eyes tight. No amount of controlled breathing his anxiety class had taught him worked, and he panicked. His chest had grown heavy, his lungs refused to work the way they should have, while vivid recollections of that night, of the stabbing pain that had rushed through him as his arm was severed, flooded over him. It was as the elevator came to a stop that his every muscle fell weak in defeat and he begun falling.

That's all though.

No impact.

No feeling.

Only a void of light-gray settled in his mind.

He'd heard mild whispers, most he didn't recognize. One, though, he did. He tried to hold onto the sound of her voice. Only, he couldn't.

The handle of his room's door squeaked silently as it opened then, letting in a rush of light and a strangely familiar aromatic warm air.

He turned to his right then as the door began closing-shutting out the light-and watched as Abby moved towards his ill-lit area of the room.

_Her,_ a voice in his head told him, and he watched as she sat on the edge of the bed beside him like she had done earlier that night.

She had in her hands two red and white boxes. He recognized both, his mouth immediately watering as he took in the aroma of KFC Popcorn and Mashies, not to forget the Colonel's special peppery gravy, sitting just inside the Mashies box.

"What the hell is that supposed to be?" Romano sourly asked as Abby opened the Mashies box first.

"Breakfast," she replied, removing the napkins from inside the Mashies box.

"Fluffy balls of mashed potato and gravy?"

She smiled for a second, before opening the small gravy pottle. She picked out a 'fluffy ball of mashed potato', as Romano had so thoughtfully put it, then, she lightly dunked the foot item into the gravy-simultaneously meeting his gaze. His lips parted every slightly, and she bit the end off the mashie. "Mmm," she murmured, "It's very good," she said between chews.

Romano shook his head at her. "You call this a thanksgiving meal?" he asked with a sigh.

"Day-after breakfast," Abby said, giving him a wink. "Come on, they're delicious."

"And put on the pounds like you have from eating that crap? Not on your life," he angrily replied, pushing both boxes a little farther away from him.

She pushed the boxes back into place. "Talk to me like that, and you'll get a roommate that snores," she growled.

He let out a long groan, before sighing. "Couldn't you have gotten something a little more traditional?"

She wasn't paying him much attention as she picked out another mashie and dunked it in the gravy. "Such as...?" she asked nonchalantly, eating the mashie.

"Roast turkey...cranberry sauce...yams..."

"I thought about that," Abby replied after a moment. She picked out another mashie, this time pausing as she met Romano's gaze. "But then, I realized I could piss you off so much more if I got this instead." A sarcastic grin followed, and she ate the mashie-though without gravy this time.

"Are you always this annoying to patients?"

She grinned. "Only the one's I despise. Now shut up before I eat the rest of these."

Romano rolled his eyes. _Bitch._

He didn't eat anything though. With his elbow and arm hurting the way it was, he decided to watch Abby eat instead. He was amused, in many ways. There he had thought she would have been a meticulous eater after all these years working together - well, sort of - but she was just as much a guts as the next person. _You've got to admit, Rocket, it's kind of sexy the way she holds the mashie between her forefinger and thumb._

She dunked her latest mashie in the gravy and he swallowed, his chest sinking as she lifted the steamy food item to her lips and took a bite. There was some gravy at the corner of her mouth, and he could almost imagine the taste of her lips, of taking them with his as he'd passionately kiss her. Her lips were full, succulent. His gaze trailed down her front as she began talking about the 'backload'. The vision of unbuttoning her blouse entered his mind. He almost had the final button free, ready to help her out of the blouse, when he felt Abby smack the back of his hand.

"Hey!" she exclaimed with a smile, and he stared at her. "That's not nice," Abby said. "And you still haven't eaten anything."

Her hand-smacking action wounded his pride a little and Romano shrugged as best he could. "Not hungry."

"Bull," she replied. There was no thought, at least on his part, to the movement that came next. Abby picked out a mashie, dunked it in the gravy first, before leaning forward and holding it a half inch away from his lips. "Eat up," she gently said.

"Don't be ridiculous," he said, but she placed the mashie partway in his mouth, and he bit off the front half of it. He was chewing, his eyes locked on hers, when she ate the other half, smiling tenderly at him.

He stopped then.

"You have a little," she said, pausing as she leaned that bit closer to wipe the smudge of gravy from the corner of his mouth. "Gravy," she smiled.

Romano didn't speak, he watched as she licked the peppery foodstuff from her fingertip, swallowing his half of their shared mashie as she did so. She was picking out a second mashie, when he asked, "Is this because I lost my arm?"

Abby looked at him, lowering the mashie from her mouth. She shook her head. "No."

He cast his gaze away from her in disbelief.

"Is that what you think? That I'm here out of pity?"

"It's true isn't it?"

She raised her eyebrows at him. Reaching over, she lifted his face to meet her gaze again. "No one pity's you, doctor Romano."

"Short straw, right?" he quietly replied, holding her gaze. "I forgot."

Abby opened her mouth to speak, when the door to the room opened and she quickly pulled her hand back from Romano's face and stood up straight.

Kerry stood in the doorway, frowning. "What's going on in here?" she asked.

"I've got...things..." Abby stammered, but, not getting the right words out, she left the room amongst the awkward silence, and pulled the door closed after her as she left.

Guilt and regret flooded through Romano as his gaze remained locked on Abby's silhouette on the other side of the door. Was she hurt? Had he said something wrong? Is that why she lingered on the other side of the door, with her head hung low?

_Maybe,_his heart told him.

"Robert?"

His eyes faltered from Abby's still silhouette, back to an impatient Kerry. "What!" he snapped.

"Is there...?" Kerry murmured, noticing his gaze had slipped back to Abby. She was moving away now, and Kerry turned back to Romano. Seeing the unimpressed look on his face, she decided not to follow through with that particular line of questioning. "Panic attack?" she asked then, sounding almost bewildered.

He turned away from her. "Something like that," he mumbled. "Now get lost."

"That crap isn't good for you, you know," she stated, before turning and leaving the room.

Romano waited until he heard the final 'click' of the door, before he let out a long, loud sigh. He looked down at the two red and white boxes, his mind void of thought for the first time in so long as he could remember.

"What would you know?" he whispered, leaning back against the pillow behind him. He closed his eyes, and drifted.


End file.
